Why You Should See an Emergency Dentistry Office to Treat a Cracked Tooth

Emergency dentistry treatments can treat your cracked tooth. This type of dental damage can be painful and often debilitating, especially if the crack reaches the deeper parts of the tooth. Treating this dental damage can stop the discomfort. If you want to find out how emergency dentistry can help your cracked tooth, here are the details.

How a broken tooth happens

A tooth can crack because of different reasons, such as severe decay, biting into a hard piece of food, or physical trauma. The damage may even extend to the different layers of the tooth. It can occur below, above, or along the gumline.

A crack that affects the roots is often unseen. The damage can be intense, often including the blood vessels and nerves of the tooth. This deterioration can displace or loosen the tooth.

Crack lines may appear on the enamel, but these will typically be hard to see because they are superficial and do not cause pain. Therefore, crack lines may not need treatment at all.

Large dental cracks will require different types of treatments. Each depends on the extent of the damage. If the dental crack does not reach the roots, the emergency dentistry professional can still repair the tooth. The most common way to treat this type of crack is with a root canal.

A more serious dental crack will be underneath the gumline. This is not repairable, and the emergency dentistry professional may need to extract the affected tooth. Even if this type of crack does not cause pain, it still has to be removed because it could trigger the beginning of a severe infection.

The cusp is the chewing surface of the tooth. Sometimes, pieces of the cusp can chip off. This can give way to more cusp breakage and eventually, cracks or fractures. Fractured cusps may or may not be painful. The emergency dentistry treatment will depend on the severity of the fracture. Dentists often use a crown or filling to treat this type of dental crack.

When a cracked tooth can avoid extraction

The emergency dentistry provider will assess the affected tooth first. The extent of the crack will inform the dentist what treatment is possible. A mild dental crack can be repaired, especially if it has not reached the jawbone or dental roots. If the dental crack was caused by severe decay, however, the tooth may already have a severe, deep infection. At this stage, the patient is at risk of developing an infection in the jawbone. The emergency dentistry provider will need to extract the whole tooth and remove the infected tissue.

Where to get emergency dentistry treatments for a cracked tooth

If the patient cannot reach their regular attending dentist, other dentists in the area may agree to treat a cracked tooth on the same day. But a cracked tooth can happen at any time, which is when an emergency dentistry facility can make things better. If the patient does not have access to this kind of dental care, an ER is always an alternative.